The complete finance professional

ACCA research has revealed that the vast majority of CFOs looking to appoint new staff for their businesses believe it is important for each potential employee to have both a breadth and depth of finance expertise and capabilities.

Our report entitled The Complete Finance Professional: Why breadth and depth of finance capability matter in today's finance function gathers together existing evidence about the role of the 21st century accountant. It also outlines why broad-based finance qualifications remain valuable in economically turbulent times.

Key findings from the 500 global finance professionals surveyed for inclusion in this report show:

89% said that understanding the links between all areas of finance enabled recruits to minimise future financial risks and 88% said it enabled them to deal with financial challenges.
When it comes to sustainable business growth, 76% said it 'really adds value to their business' for their finance professionals to have the complete finance knowledge and skills set, from both financial and strategic management accounting.
The importance of newly qualified finance professionals having a good working knowledge of different finance areas also resulted in high scores for each subject.